Aspects of Child Development

Aspects of Child Development

hild and young person development
1.2 Describe with examples how different aspects of development can affect one another

Under the headings below – explain how a child may be affected by delayed or advanced development in each area, including how this delay or advancement may impact on other areas of development – give examples.

Physical Development:

Delayed
Obesity among children will disrupt children’s physical development and have an impact on their social and emotion wellbeing. The fact they are overweight may mean they struggle when doing sports activities at school, which could result in the child being teased by their classmates, leaving them feeling self conscious and embarrassed. Also getting changed in front of their friends can be an embarrassing experience with the child being called names and ridiculed because of their size. Over time they may not want to do PE, affecting their health even more, preferring to stay at home rather than be ridiculed, resulting in absences and falling behind in other studies. Obesity can also disrupt the onset of puberty in boys, as hormones get affected and slow the male development. This could lead to teasing and bullying by other boys resulting in low self esteem and as they withdraw into themselves and away from peer groups they can become isolated and depressed.

Advanced
Girls often reach puberty quicker than boys. This can often be a stressful time as girl’s bodies start to develop, that is hips widen, breasts develop, periods begin. If a girl experiences puberty before her friends, say at 9 years old, it may make her very self conscious. Friends might tease her about putting on weight which could in turn lead to dieting and creating the image of herself as fat affecting her social development. Sometimes eating disorders occur as the child tries to make herself socially acceptable and slim. As the breasts develop it may mean that the girl is teased about having to wear a bra, by friends who haven’t...